There’s a new trend in town. And whoever would have thought that the West’s biggest contribution to Chinese culinary culture in fact pairs rather well with some of the nation’s traditional snacks? More and more people are cottoning on!
The present economic climate in China has brought about much diversification in the food and beverage sector of late. First, as people started emerging from their homes in the wake of COVID, establishments which had previously only been open for part of the day adopted a business model that has become known simply as “morning coffee, afternoon tea, evening alcohol”.
It made a lot of sense as businesses struggled to stimulate demand that had been partly non existent for the better part of 3 years.
And now, the whole concept has been given a shot in the arm by throwing traditional local snacks in to the mix.
The adrenaline factor in this is the fact that black coffee can be matched with many combinations of traditional Chinese snacks. Americano in particular, and latte, are able to neutralise the slightly greasy taste of glutinous rice.
The phenomenon has gripped many Chinese cities to an extent. Looking first to Hangzhou, along the City’s downtown Zhongshan Zhong Lu is a coffee shop with the specialty of serving coffee with Hangzhou-style snacks. On the menu, the coffee is mainly Americano, latte and other varieties, while the snacks include scallion-wrapped Chinese juniper, oily porridge, stinky doufu and crispy fish.
Stinky doufu with coffee? For real? Yeah, for real. And it’s caught on!
But that’s just their afternoon preference, as Nanjing Daily has reported. In the morning, customers usually order an iced Americano with scallion-wrapped juniper.
Xiao Gu is the owner of Longtone Coffee in Hangzhou’s Linping District. Her coffee shop’s meatballs and coffee as specialities are often sold out before noon, while she can take 20 orders for a combination of green-onion-wrapped juniper and cold brew Americano in just half an hour during peak periods.
Elsewhere, the Ningbo area does coffee and scallion pancakes or deep-fried dough sticks. These combinations, The Nanjinger testifies, are particularly good.
Then there is Chaozhou with coffee and taro cakes, Kunming which sells coffee and dried-plum vegetables, Shantou with its coffee and sausage rolls, while Guangzhou, not to be outdone, specialises in coffee and dim sum (of course) and, unbelievably, beef offal.
The new nationwide trend may be down to a Shanghai coffee shop in recent years launching a combination as simple as pancakes and coffee. Nothing off about that; it’s a staple of any diner in the USA.
But key to China’s new collision of down-to-earth snacks and coffee appears in fact to be the more incredible the combination, the more money there is to be made.
